Let people live in CBD, says Africa’s top green architect

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION OF KENYA ANNUAL CONVENTION 2016, LEISURE LODGE, KWALE

Eastgate Shopping Mall is said to be the first building in the world to take natural cooling technology to a new level of sophistication. Tell us about the inspiration behind the design.

In 1984, I met Bill Mollison who is considered the father of permaculture, a system that encompasses not only agriculture, horticulture, architecture, and ecology, but also economic and legal systems for businesses and communities. It uses social design principles centred on simulating or directly utilising the patterns and features observed in natural world. I thought we could do with what I called “perma-architecture” and build a city that acts like a rainforest. Then I studied a video by British naturalist David Attenborough who once got inside a termite mound and described how cool it was during the hottest part of the day. Eastgate is modelled on the way termites construct their nest to ventilate — cooling and heating it through natural means. Eastgate’s ventilation system costs one-tenth that of a comparable air-conditioned building.